Book View Cafe is a consortium of over twenty professional authors with extensive publishing credits in the print world. Every day, new content available nowhere else will be served up on Book View Cafe: short stories, flash fiction, poetry, episodes of serialized novels, and maybe even a podcast now and then.

Book View Cafe is a new approach to publishing made possible by the Internet. Book View authors write in a variety of genres including science fiction, fantasy, romance, horror and mystery. We are pleased to make our work directly available to you.

Authors who will be participating in the panel are: Sue Lange, Laura Anne-Gilman, and Susan Wright.

After my introduction of the trio, Sue started the discussion by admitting that she had forgotten to bring her books with her, but made up for it by bringing various handouts that listed the authors in the collective (most notably famed Star Trek authoresses Vonda N. McIntyre & Christie Golden, as well as legendary fantasy authoress Ursula K. LeGuin) as well as advertising their newest short story anthologies Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls (which features the work of Steven Piziks -- the first male in what had been an almost exclusively female collective) & The Shadow Conspiracy: Tales of the Steam Age (which Laura had edited and was their first foray into steampunk stories)along with her own anthology (mentioned in the paragraph above).

Sue then stated that one of the goals was to provide a forum for authors to present their work in the new electronic formats that are out there now (and make them accessible to the public at low prices) as well as bringing back older works from authors that have fallen out of print. Laura Anneadded that it wasn't necessarily true in her case (knock on wood) but Susan Wright said that in her case the first volume* of her trilogy HAD fallen out of print even though it sold well (mainly because the imprint under which the first volume was published had gone out of business-this had intrigued Master "Topher"). They all agreed that the intent of Book View Cafe was not to put traditional publishing out of business,but to supplement it.

After a few more questions and answers each of the authors read a sample from their works. Laura Anne read from Flesh and Fire a horror story. Susan W. read from her soon-to-be-released novel Confessions of a Demon an urban fantasy about a vampiress who feeds on her victims' emotions (and not just their blood). Both Susan W. & Laura Anne saidthat in urban fantasies you can use real locations (as long as the businesses don't actually exist there). Sue Lange closed out the meeting by reading her science-fiction satire The Club. They graciously signed some of their books while the rest of us began clean-up. Laura AnneGilman joined most of us at the diner to hear Master Bill'smovie anecdotes (except for poor Josephine, who was roped into helping out at the Borders in Ramsey,even though it was her night off!!! -- leaving poor AM stuck because Jo was her ride home!!!)

All in all a good meeting. Bookview Cafe is definitely worth checking out.